monthly boxes - Stuff Parents Need

Accessory Inspiration from Around the World: Ensemble Box

August 30, 2016 · by Tiffany Merritt · Leave a Comment

When it comes to fashion, I am pretty much the worst at accessorizing. I just don’t have an eye for how to pull things together on my own and if I want to achieve a certain “look” I have to just copy it from my source of inspiration to not get it horribly wrong. I actually really love looking at accessories, and wish I had the confidence to know what to buy that would work with my wardrobe. But I get so confused so easily, and more often than not, I just don’t buy anything and then find myself wearing outfits that fall short of looking polished.

So when Ensemble Box reached out about their company and what it offers, I was very excited. This is a monthly subscription service that will send you a few fun accessories each month, and every box is inspired by a particular country.

The August box I was sent, for example, contained items inspired by Spain. Three accessories were included, as well as a bonus treat (in this case, some tea that is traditional to Spain).

The pashmina silk wrap is absolutely gorgeous and felt like the “big” item in the box. The colors are perfect for the fall, too.

I also really love the hollow out round drop earrings. This is something I would never have the guts to buy from a store but now that I own them I love them! They are so flashy and fun, and yet, if I wear my hair down then they can blend in a bit and not be overly loud.

I also think the aviator metal sunglasses are quite fun. I’m not sure that they are the best style for my face frame, but I’ll keep playing around with them.

The Ensemble Box seems to be very thoughtfully curated box at a reasonable price point of $37.95 monthly. This is a new subscription service and there are few things I’d love to see them include as they continue to grow. First, I’d like to see retail price points for the items included. When I purchase a subscription box I like to feel as though I am getting a lot of bang for my buck, so show me what I might have spent if I’d picked up each item at full retail cost! Second, I’d like to see more information on the website about the country of the month and some ideas for how to weave the accessories into your wardrobe. Show me some folks wearing the scarf or the earrings to give me ideas (because I promise I’ll struggle to come up with it on my own!). And finally I’d love to see the option of subscribing for a longer period of time (month-to-month is the only option for now) and a little price break for committing to more boxes.

Are you an accessory maven or are you like me and riding the struggle bus in this department? Would Ensemble Box be something that could help you get out of a fashion rut?

Mail Order Lobster From Maine for the New England Experience: Meet LobstahBox

August 27, 2016 · by Tiffany Merritt · Leave a Comment

I’ve always dreamed of having an awesome date night at home with lobster. It sounds so divine! But I have no clue how to even pick a good lobster, let alone cook one! That’s where my friend Annemarie Menelli’s company, LobstahBox, comes in to save the day and make this dream totally possible by shipping you the New England experience, complete with mail order lobster from Maine. Enjoy her guest post and be sure to check out this awesome woman-owned business!

For me it isn’t a fun family gathering unless we’re surrounded by great food. My fondest memories growing up were big backyard feasts with my big — and very loud — New England family. The food often was New England classics and most memorable was fresh Maine lobster. These are some of the best memories of my life, the kind I’ll never forget. And that’s the reason I co-founded LobstahBox with my business partner, Jessica.

We started LobstahBox to give people the opportunity to create their own memories with their friends and family around an outstanding and authentic New England meal they’ll never forget.

LobstahBox brings to your kitchen table great times in a way that only authentic Maine lobster can! From the fun and laughter of cooking it to the cracking and picking of the meat with your entire family wearing lobster bibs, you’ll have a picture to treasure and share for years to come.

We know that for some the joy of eating lobster can be cut short by a fear of cooking it. That’s why we make it so incredibly easy for you with our step-by-step instructions that come with every order. If you can bring water to a boil, you can cook lobster. Our goal is to make the LobstahBox experience as fun and easy for you to enjoy with the ones you love.

Every classic LobstahBox comes with lobster crackers and lobster picks, lobster bibs & placemats showing you how to eat lobster, wet naps for cleaning your hands when the feast is over and cooking sheets that easily show you how to cook the lobster.

It’s the perfect gift to get your kids, young and old, around your kitchen table and make memories that will last a lifetime. Or, enjoy it for a romantic date night in with your partner. We’re confident you’ll find LobstahBox is the gift that won’t disappoint!

You can feel good knowing that the Maine lobster you’re eating is actually coming from Maine! Our commitment to sustainability is the center of everything we do. Our 100% Maine lobster is wild-caught and harvested, one trap at a time, off the coast of Maine.

Sweet, delicious lobster starts at the ecosystem where the lobster lives. In Maine, we ensure this ecosystem is protected by only harvesting by trap, ensuring this ecosystem is pristine and not overfished. It’s good for the environment, it’s good for the lobster industry and it’s good for you!

LobstahBox is excited to share our email campaign going on now, in anticipation of our launch on August 30th. If you sign-up now, you will have a chance to win free lobsters and also ways to earn additional product by spreading the good news for us. Please check out our website at www.lobstahbox.com and join us! Anyone can bring it to a boil. It’s lobstah time.

A Subscription Service for the Tea Aficianado: Just Add Honey

September 18, 2015 · by Tiffany Merritt · Leave a Comment

Thanks to Just Add Honey for providng a box for review purposes. All thoughts and opinions are my own, as always. Affiliate links may be included.

I am a huge fan of the afternoon ritual of tea time.

Well, let me clarify: in my world, that looks like afternoon coffee time, but that particular ritul that is totally a part of the cultural fabric of England is spot on (pardon the pun). I have tried many times over to fall in love with tea so that I could do a proper tea time each afternoon. Alas, it’s just not in the cards for me. But I know many of you out there adore a delicious cup of tea, and if that’s you, then you need look no further than Just Add Honey.

This monthly subscription service offers its members exclusive blends of tea that come from small growers all over the world. The ingredients are organic and I can tell from first-hand experience, they smell AMAZING and they are beautiful, too.

This is petal pusher, which I sampled due to its medium caffeine content, which I needed mid-morning! It’s a blend of black tea and rose petals and the smell is intoxicating!

The directions for how much to use and how long to steep are on the package. You’ll get several cups from each package.

And let’s not forget that gorgeous honey!

Subscribers get a different yummy honey with each box (for the honey subscription or for the tea and honey subscription). This one is from Walker Honey Farm in Rogers, TX. It’s dark and YUMMY! I added a teaspoon to my tea after it steeped and thought it was delicious! Every box features a new jar of raw American harvest honey from small batched beekeepers. So cool!

If honey isn’t really your thing, you can also go for the tea subscription box. Pricing is as follows for the 3 types of boxes:

honey subscription box: $12.95
tea subscription box: $19.95
tea and honey subscription box: $29.95

If you or someone you know LOVES tea, then I think Just Add Honey offers something really special that you can’t just run to the store and replicate.

Coupon Code!

Want to give Just Add Honey a try? Use promo code YOYAL-I-TEA and you’ll get 20% off anything on the site!

Animal Trackers Club Subscription Service Review

June 16, 2015 · by Tiffany Merritt · Leave a Comment

Complimentary box provided for review purposes. As always, all thoughts and opinions are my own.

I agreed to review the Animal Trackers Club subscription box for kids because my oldest is particularly fond of animals. Her favorite cartoon is Wild Kratts (all about different animals in the wild) and one of her favorite things to do is to tell anyone who will listen all sorts of interesting and even random animal facts.

The Animal Trackers Club seems designed for kids over 3, but probably not older than 5, based on the skill level of the activities included.

Our kit came with the following items:

Introduction to the Animal Trackers Club
Animal Trackers Club Safari Lunchbox
African Savanna Information Card
Cover and Ring for the Safari Animal Photo Collection
Savanna Art Project
Savanna Animal Cards Activity

Each month your child will receive:

Animal Information Card
Animal Play Figure
Animal Foam Mask
Animal Magnet
Safari Animal Photo Card
Learning Activity
Art Project

So the lunchbox is a one-and-done kind of deal. The box is $11.95 plus shipping each month. This subscrition service is a bit less expensive than many of the other subscription boxes I have tried, and I think you get what you pay for here, as the activities, in my opinion, lacked imagination.

I will say that this might be a great choice for the animal loving-child who isn’t particularly fond of arts and crafts. I think I was expecting activities that were a bit more involved, when the reality was that we had a few worksheets, each of which only took a few minutes to complete, a craft that involved styrofoam (yuck) and a sticker activity that took about 30 seconds.

Now with that said, the animal figure and the animal mask that came in the kit were big hits, and the girls played with them for quite some time. So I could see this being a draw to the child who loves to form a collection, as each month you will get an animal figure and an animal mask to stow away in your safari lunchbox so that you can easily play all sorts of animal-based imaginative games. But the other activities will be over and done surprisingly fast.

The activities also seem geared toward those just learning letters and numbers, which will make them too old for the 7 or 8-year old who really loves animals and might otherwise enjoy the subscription. I think the target age here is small (3-5?) but for that age group, it could be a hit. It wasn’t a hit for us, but it wasn’t a complete miss, and I should remind us all of its price point again, which is lower than most subscription boxes for kids.

Homespun Fun, Delivered Monthly: Blossom Box Review

May 30, 2015 · by Tiffany Merritt · Leave a Comment

Boxes provided for review purposes. All thoughts and opinions are my own, as always.

The subscription box market seems to be getting just a little crowded, especially when it comes to kid-friendly offerings. That means that buyers, like me, can be a bit ore choosy about what they select when looking for something fun for the kiddos.

I want to give a very strong recommendation for Blossom Box! While I don’t think it is the right subscription box for every single kid out there (and frankly, what subscription box would be?), I DO think it is a really great fit for kids ages 6-10 who love to use their imaginations, and who are intrigued by nature.

Blossom Box has a vibe to it that is different from any other subscription box I have yet encountered. It feels very homespun, and I mean that in a good way! Let’s take a closer look.

Here’s a look at the contents of April’s box, which was all about birds. Notice the natural materials included, such as bird feathers and bird seed. Even the individual projects come in these brown paper bags that give the entire box a natural feel.

May’s box is all about storytelling, with wooden figures and blocks as part of the offerings. Side note: I also noticed that the color pencils included were Crayola, which I definitely appreciated, because that’s one area where you get what you pay for with art supplies, so go for Crayola! 🙂

I found the May box to be too difficult for my youngest to get to play with as it involved some intricate cutting and sewing (to be fair, she just turned 3 a few weeks ago) and I even found it to be a bit of a stretch for my 5-year-old. So I’m tucking these activities away and will pull them out again next year when I think she’ll be more ready for them.

But the birds box was a huge hit with both of my kids! They loved making edible art for the birds with the birdseed.

We even took a few of the crafts with us on vacation, and made our own bird sculpture while we were there. It may not be the more realistic looking bird I’ve ever seen, but Layah sure was proud of her creation! She molded the clay just the way she wanted, and applied each and every feather herself.

And we also enjoyed trying out painting with feathers as our paintbrushes. The girls used both sides of the feathers and made some really cool paintings. We even had plenty of the tempera paint powder left over to save for future art projects, which was awesome!

I was very impressed with the art projects offered in the Blossom boxes. I can tell that a great deal of thought has gone into them, and the projects tend to use materials that are a bit different from what I’ve seen in other craft boxes. I do think they are a bit too advanced for your average preschooler, but that’s just my own opinion. I think this is a GREAT choice for an elementary school kid who loves art and nature. They come together beautifully in this monthly box.

Blossom Box is available for $19.95/month plus shipping (which is $4.95 per box). You can sign up month by month and cancel at any time, or you can purchase 3 month, 6 month and 12 month subscriptions for a discount, though with every plan, the shipping charge is added (my opinion? just wrap the shipping charge into the price of the kit and be done with it!).

Best believe this will be on our Christmas wish list this year! We loved it! 🙂

Coupon!

I’ve got a coupon code for anyone who wants to sign up for an ongoing subscription with Blossom Box. Use BLOOM at checkout and you’ll save 50% on your first box. Yay!

For the Bath and Shower Lovers: Sudsy Box

August 10, 2014 · by Tiffany Merritt · 2 Comments

My husband is a man who doesn’t care too much about gifts, doesn’t have expensive taste, and just isn’t too concerned with stuff, in general.

But he has one item that he is so very dead serious about: his soap. I have asked him on several occasions to help me finish off some shower gel by using it in the shower so that I can get a new one out, and since he is such a nice guy, he usually does it. But he has finally told me, “I REALLY like soap. And I REALLY like nice soap. And I REALLY REALLY REALLY don’t want to use shower gel ever.” For a man who doesn’t put too much thought or concern into trivial matters, I took this to mean that I need to . GET THIS MAN SOME AMAZING SOAP, STAT.

Sudsy Box

So when I heard about Sudsy Box, a bi-monthly artisan soap subscription service, I knew we were on to something. Sudsy Box kindly sent me a box to review, and I decided to open everything on camera so you could share in the experience of what opening a box is like. Check it out!

I have used the soaps now, and the smell is just heavenly when you are in the shower! I think those essential oils come out and really start to shine once a little steam and a little water is in the mix!

I am personally going to take advantage of the 20% off coupon and get Tim a half-yearly subscription, as it brings the price for 3 boxes down to $45.60, which is just $15.20/box (hint: that makes those 3 boxes even cheaper than the per box price for the yearly subscription, as the 20% off coupon is only for monthly or half-yearly subscriptions). AUGUST20 is what you’ll use at check out to snag this great deal. These make truly great gifts or a really fun and affordable treat for yourself!

Let me know if you decide to go for it!!!

Bluum Box Customized Subscription Service for Infants-Preschool

June 16, 2014 · by Tiffany Merritt · Leave a Comment

Thanks to Bluum Box for providing a box for review purposes. All thoughts and opinions are my own, as always. Affiliate links may be included.

I’m so excited to show you all the fun things that came in our recent Bluum Box for Layah! This subscription service for young children came very prettily packaged and was custom created not only for 25 month old little girls, which is pretty specific, but it also came with items that were perfect for the start of summer.

bluum box

I was TOTALLY impressed!

The box we received from Bluum was all about spending time out in the sun, and protecting ourselves from those pesky UV rays, as well as some fun ways to relax. The first item of note was KidZ BanZ, which are sunglasses that you can strap on to your child so they won’t fall off. Cute, right? I wish I could tell you that she loved them as much as I loved seeing her in them. Unfortunately, I can’t get her to agree to wear them. Bummer…they are an awesome idea, and they retail for $17, which makes them worth a good chunk of what the Bluum Box costs (you always come out ahead, price-wise, with a Bluum Box!).

But I can still get her eyes some protection (as well as the back of her neck!) with this cute sun hat which she WILL wear! 🙂 Darah has even tried to wear it, but alas, her head it just too big!

But she CAN wear the sunscreen that came in the kit. It’s from a brand I didn’t previously know (Purple Prairies Botanicals) and it is a mineral stick of sunscreen. Darah likes putting it on herself, and I like that it is water resistant. I will say that I personally prefer the spray-on sunscreens just because other types take longer to apply and to soak in, but I have used this sunscreen a handful of times and have been pleased with the protection it provides each time. This product retails for $9.99, so by the time you factor in the tax you would pay at a store, the sunscreen and the sunglasses are items your subscription price covered, and everything else (as well as shipping) was free. Not too shabby!

Other items in the kit included a great reusable snack container which has been going to school with the kids for their 2 day/week program, and the book Ten Little Monkeys (which we actually already owned, or else it definitely would have been a hit!).

Bluum Box Pricing

A one month subscription to Bluum costs $29, and we certainly received more than $29 worth of merchandise. But the price improves to just $25/box if you make a 3 month commitment. Up it to 6 months and your price is $23/box, and if you go all in and get a 12 month subscription, you get the very best deal, as each box will now only cost $20.79.

So I’m VERY seriously considering getting the 12 month subscription because I think the value is so high. If you have ever had a Bluum Box subscription, I’d love to hear from you about your experience!

My First Citrus Lane Box: Our Thoughts

May 13, 2014 · by Tiffany Merritt · 4 Comments

Complimentary box provided for review. All thoughts and opinions are my own, as always. Affiliate links may be included. I only promote what I use and love!

I’m no stranger to subscription boxes, and for the most part, I find them to be little bundles of joy delivered straight to my doorstep. They are a great way to try products that I may not have heard of yet, or that might be a bit out of my price range but offered through a box service at a discounted price.

I decided to give Citrus Lane a try primarily because I was VERY impressed with how customized their boxes are. These are fun little boxes designed for children from the newborn stage, all the way up to preschool level. The company learns the exact age and gender of your child, and sends developmentally appropriate products. I appreciate this level of customization, as I have experienced other subscription boxes that weren’t as targeted, and therefore included products that were either too juvenile or too advanced for my child. Citrus Lane does a great job of hitting the mark!

Here’s what our box looked like:

The first item that got Layah’s attention was the Petit Collage beginner puzzle. She has played with this several times now, as she really enjoys putting things together (Legos, puzzles, etc.). It is cute, and spot-on for where she’s at developmentally. It definitely made for a fun new toy this month!

The other big highlight for her was the eco-kids play dough. It wasn’t quite as soft as the more popular version of the product, but since Layah has a tendency to taste whatever she makes with her dough, I was glad to see that this option was made with natural and organic ingredients.

The Medella citrus lotion that was included was a surprise for me, and I wasn’t too sure if Layah would like it. But as it turns out, she LOVES having me put lotion on her and do a massage. So that was a surprise hit, as well!

I honestly could take or leave the medi-buddy. It is a travel-sized first aid kit (though really it just has band-aids, some sterilizing wipes, a bit of ointment, and some stickers). I suppose this is a smart thing to keep in the car, though I’d rather just keep it in a zip-loc bag, as I’m not one for having this kind of thing take up more space than is necessary. Just my two cents, though!

Citrus Lane Subscription Box Prices (and a Coupon!)

Ok, so here’s how the subscription prices break down. You can purchase 1 month, 3 months or 6 months. You get the best per box price if you commit to 6 months. 1 month is $29/month. 3 months is $24/month. 6 months is $21/month. Each box will contain 4-5 products, and you will also be offered discounts if you would like to purchase more of any product you try in the box. Each box will have a retail value of at least $29.

In addition to receiving the great box of goodies, you also have access to other great resources on the Citrus Lane website. The Citrus Lane parent community is also a very nice resource, having over 300,000 mom and dad members that can engage with each other on parenting challenges and questions. The site also has some great editorial content and fun contests.

Take $10 Off!

If you’d like to try Citrus Lane for the first time, you can take $10 off any subscription using the code TAKETEN at checkout. Let me know how you like your first box if you decide to go for it!

Have you tried Citrus Lane yet? I’m curious to hear about your experience!